Unprecedented Downgrade of US Credit Rating

"[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011."

--Standard & Poor's rating agency, explaining the unprecedented downgrade in the credit rating of the United States

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S&P should have zero credibility after the Enron debacle, where countless people lost everything they had investing in a worthless company, based on S&P's rating. Their political agenda is suspect, as when they started bossing Ireland around when they started having economic woes, telling them to change leadership. Are they going to start telling the US who to elect? Who do you think will end up with all the wealth in this country then, with S&P calling the shots? Get Obama out, and then they will give back that triple A+ rating? Time for pushback on the S&Ps of the world.

as disreputable as S&P has become, i find it difficult to refute their statement. i understand the arguments levied by our various voices of goverment, the executive and legislative branches chose their course of action, and choices have consequences, just or not. it does not pay to play chicken with the economy of a nation for pecking points.

S&P couldn't care less about what the economy of the US does, for pecking points or otherwise. All they care about is that their unregulated financial services conglomerates get to loot entire nations for every penny, unfettered by any governments, except those willing to act as stooges for their unbridled piracy, and enable them to further enrich themselves at the cost of entire populations. Their only motto: "Get all the wealth into the hands of those who really deserve it, so we can rule the world our way."

Actually, Exra Klein agrees with you, Jack, about S&P being correct in their downgrade of the US, but look at the twisted, sick, destructive relationship he describes:
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"Standard Poor’s didn’t just miss the bubble. They helped cause it. They were paid by the banks to award their AAA-stamp of approval to all manner of financial products that were anything but riskless -- which, ironically, makes them an accessory to the resulting explosion of U.S. debt ... But that doesn’t make Standard Poor’s wrong in this particular case." — Ezra Klein in today's Washington Post.

It's analogous to the standard of care that the US government has instituted for the middle and lower classes; first break their legs, and then spit on them for not being able to walk...